Though he’s been an area resident for some time, maybe Claude Giroux should sit himself down and realize he should stay the heck away from Ottawa.

Last summer, the Flyers captain was practicing for a golf tournament there when he claimed he took a chunk of turf out with a bad swing and wound up breaking his club. The shaft of the club went into his hand, Giroux said, leaving him to spend the balance of the summer (and part of training camp) recovering from surgery; it was likely no coincidence he got off to a slow start to the season.

No trees on the course were interviewed for their version of that story.

But that misadventure was nothing compared to what Giroux pulled Tuesday night. According to a report in the Ottawa Sun, Giroux spent the night in a city jail after allegedly spending a tipsy evening goosing cops.

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The Sun cited sources as saying Giroux was initially detained for “repeatedly grabbing the buttocks of a male police officer.”

Shockingly, the paper reported that alcohol was believed to have been involved, and that the incident occurred outside a place called The Great Canadian Cabin in the Byward Market “club district.”

Happy Canada Day!

Police wound up not charging Giroux or commenting to the Sun about the case late Tuesday night, though several sources told the paper Giroux, 26, did spend the balance of his evening at the police station. He is not expected to face any charges.

The Sun even had citizen journalists joining in on the fun, tweeting shortly after 9 p.m. that Giroux was sitting in the back of a police cruiser.

The Flyers issued a statement this morning acknowledging the report and saying only, “Until we have more information, we will withhold making any further comment.”

This story harkens back to the headache the Flyers had in Eric Lindros’ first year, when while recovering from a knee injury, the then 19-year-old star went into a club in Oshawa, Ont. called KooKoo Bananas on Nov. 28, 1992. A 24-year-old woman alleged Lindros spit beer on her, and the cops were called in on the incident. Lindros and his family played that out, with pictures of him being led away in cuffs in all the newspapers, and resulting in a trial in Ontario Provincial Court the following winter.